U-turn on C-charging

A year ago, we called on the Government to drop its congestion charging plans for cities - and switch instead to an urban transport investment fund that did not require C-charging.

Last week, the Department for Transport finally responded by scrapping the Transport Innovation Fund and launching the new Urban Challenge Fund - see full details here.

We support congestion charging in principle. But it's a very hard sell, especially in a recession and fragile recovery - and so requires strong, brave leaders to implement it.

Ken Livingstone did the right thing in 2000, putting C-charging in his manifesto. But no other city has since managed to repeat his feat, and the £2 billion TIF has remained largely unspent. Meanwhile, Government Ministers have distanced themselves from C-charging, especially following Greater Manchester's decisive NO vote in Dec 08.

DfT last week admitted the weaknesses of their TIF strategy: "too narrow a focus on congestion, the failure to win public acceptance, and inability to transform governance".

The Urban Challenge Fund is much broader than the TIF. Reducing congestion is only one aspect. The new Fund will support packages of measures that also deliver better health, improved safety, enhanced mobility, etc - that means things like better bus services, traffic management, street design, and more walking and cycling.

The decision to go for a much broader fund was based on work carried out by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit - see DfT's response, The Future of Urban Transport. This found that the costs of poor air quality, inactivity/obesity and road accidents are each similar to the costs of congestion. So, the Urban Challenge Fund will focus not just on congestion but go much wider.

We won't know the size of the new Fund until the 2011-14 Spending Review is announced towards the end of this year. If the Tories win the election, they have promised to implement their Transport Carbon Reduction Fund - which they say is quite similar.